


Lava Lamp

by henclair



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Married Couple, Nightmares, Trauma, hh im sorry everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 04:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13674300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/henclair/pseuds/henclair
Summary: Dustin woke up again. 30 years later. Why couldn't he just let go?





	Lava Lamp

Dustin woke with a start, feeling a buzzing in his throat, still slightly choking his breathing and blurring his vision. This was the sixth time this month he had woken up feeling like he was in the tunnels again. He clenched his eyes shut, hands coming up tug at his curls in anguish as he attempted to push the thoughts out of his mind. A strong hand came to touch at his back and Dustin flinched, knowing the familiar pressure but still on edge from his nightmares.

“Again?” Lucas asked, voice heavy with sleep. Dustin nodded, biting his lip and looking straight ahead, hands still firmly in his curls and breathing heavily. Even as Lucas sat up next to him and laid his head on Dustin’s shoulder, the man still looked ahead at the window adjacent to their bed. 

It had been 20 fucking years ago and both boys still woke up in sweaty fits, nightmares of screaming 12 year olds and dark, damp tunnels. Everytime their lights flickered both boys would tense, waiting for something to break through a wall. The sight of bloody noses had once made Lucas go fully unresponsive, in the DMV no less. It was tiring, biting your nails till they bled all because of a fucking bunch of D&D monsters and a government conspiracy.

“I’m sorry.” Dustin spoke. His voice sounded scratchy, like the bugs or whatever that had flown into his mouth in the tunnels were actually there, in their warm bedroom in downtown Bloomington. Lucas sighed and tilted his head, pressing a kiss to Dustin’s shoulder reassuringly.

“I mean I have no reason to be this fucking scared after all these years. I didn’t even go through that much trauma! All I did was keep a fucking demon and get some fucking bugs in my mouth, not lose the love of my life or anything, or fucking be treated like a damn test tube!” Dustin cried, his hands curling in the blankets that covered him and Lucas. Lucas rubbed his head against Dustin’s shoulder, the circular movements unconsciously soothing his husband.

“You have no right to say you don’t get to be scared.” Lucas said, voice dripping with love even with the edge in his voice. “We have so many reasons too.” Dustin sighed and felt a hot tear prickle at the corner of his eye.

“I know but,” His voice cracked as he spoke, fingers beginning to fidget and tug on the threads on the blanket that were loose. Lucas nudged the moving digits with his leg to stop their destructive path. “I just, can’t forget what happened. I feel like I forget everything else. Our anniversary, our bills, the fucking day I was born.” Lucas laughed a little, smothering the noise quickly to let Dustin continue.

“But then when it comes to ages 12 to 14 it’s all I can think about.” Dustin wailed, his hands grabbing Lucas’s chin. He turned his body and brought Lucas’s face up close to his, Lucas bracing himself with two hands on Dustin’s shoulders. 

They stared into each other’s eyes, Dustin’s wet with a wave of sadness about to crash down and Lucas’s worried and tired, dark and meaningful showing that he was listening to every word. Hanging on everything his husband said, tucking it away carefully into the large part of his brain he devoted to the love of his life that he was holding onto now. 

“And it’s not just the fucking demogorgon, or the mind flayer, or the fucking gibbering mouther jackass. You remember when Max came at first?” Dustin asked, Lucas nodding and smiling fondly at the memory of his second closest friend’s arrival. Dustin smiled a little as well, the grin on his love’s face was contagious.

“Then you remember how distant we got.” Dustin said quietly, cradling Lucas’s face like it was something precious. “I can’t fucking forget that part of those years, when we hadn’t shook and it was eating me up but I’m a stubborn fuck and I just wanted to know that you _wanted_ my friendship. Like I wanted your love I guess.” Lucas frowned and opened his mouth to say something but Dustin hushed him, hands leaving Lucas’s face to play with the man’s fingers.

“It was fucking awful for me. I was so ready to give up everything so you could be happy with a girl who turned out to be lesbian.” Dustin snorted at his words, shaking his head and making a small tear drip down. “I just wish I could forget that entire year, the entire saga. No more bugs and monsters, no more labs and fucking blood. No more fucking losing you to something I fucking made up in my mind.” He muttered the last part harshly, a hand coming up to rub the bridge of his nose.

Dustin felt like he was fucking 17 again, when everything was still fresh. He didn’t feel like he was 30 and married, with a stable job and a cat and two lizards plus a suspiciously looking plant in the bathroom. It was so fucking surreal that Lucas Sinclair, no, Lucas Henderson-Sinclair, was holding him in _their_ bed in the dead of night as he shook.

“Can I talk now?” Lucas asked, a tinge of annoyance smothered by the adoration in his voice. Dustin nodded, chuckling wetly at how impatient his husband was. “Good.”

“Baby,” Lucas said quietly, hands on Dustin’s shoulders going up to hold firmly at his jaw. “You can have issues and trauma even if someone has more. Sure Will and Jane and hell even Max are going to take so fucking long to feel normal and may never feel like that. But you and I have feelings too, we’re allowed, you’re allowed, to feel things and to feel things from a long time ago too.” Dustin started to cry softly, trying to look away from the intense gaze Lucas was focusing on him, but Lucas held him steady.

“And oh god do I remember that summer. I was so fucking mad at you for trying to leave the party, I needed you a lot then and didn’t know it. I can’t ever believe I fucking moved away from cuddling with you that one time, it’s even harder to believe I did it in disgust. God it was so fucking hard for me to be roped in with all that shit while my little sister was like, eating pancakes and my parents were cuddling.” Lucas shook his head and sighed, looking Dustin in the eyes again.

“I regret so much and as much as you wake up in the middle of the nights I,” Lucas bit his lip and Dustin smiled kindly, finishing the man’s sentence for him. Two halves of a whole.

“You can’t seem to sleep.” Dustin said. It was no surprise Lucas was so quick to comfort Dustin when the man awoke. Lucas couldn’t sleep at all, succumbing to the fear of the night terrors the two shared. An odd pair, but a pair nonetheless.

“Yeah.” Lucas said shakily. Dustin swiped his thumb over a tear that was trailing across his husband’s face. He knew his own were falling but that didn’t matter anymore, feeling so fucking exhausted by spilling his feelings for the second time that week. 

“I love you so much.” Dustin said quietly, leaning in and closing his eyes, preparing for a kiss but still speaking. “You mean so much to me and have helped me so much lately and have been so good at listening even though we both know you love to argue with me.” Lucas laughed brightly and leaned his forehead against Dustin’s.

“Only because you’re always wrong.” He said with a chuckle. Dustin let a few tears escape before pressing a kiss to Lucas’s lips. They lingered there, now clammy cold tears mixing, and lips just moving slowly, no urgency. Lucas pulled away because he could feel Dustin’s words ready to escape.

“And yet I was Mr. Right.” Dustin replied, Lucas groaning and laying down, pulling Dustin with him. The two intertwined their legs, scooting closer together so they were mimicking their earlier foreheads together position. Now laying down.

Dustin grabbed the back of Lucas’s neck, pulling him in for a slow kiss, lips parting and sighing happily. Lucas dug his fingers into the knots in his husband’s back as the kissed, slow and steady pressure from his hands and his lips. Dustin sighed again, hot air rushing into Lucas’s mouth, and moved closer, tilting his chin up to meet Lucas’s lips better. That stupid ½ inch always made Dustin have to press up just a little bit to get the perfect angle when they kissed. 

“We need sleep.” Lucas mumbled, knowing full well they would continue if neither pulled away. Dustin sighed but buried his face in the pillow, arms still wrapped around Lucas. “Good.” Lucas mumbled as Dustin nodded, their legs wrapped together and squeezing. One of them sighed, content and a just slight exhale into their shared space.

“I’m sorry, I love you.” Dustin mumbled before he closed his eyes. Lucas didn’t get a chance to ask why. The sun was coming up in a few hours and they both had places to be tomorrow, so he joined his husband with eyes closed and head resting always slightly uncomfortably on the pillow and hoped in the morning he would have at least slept a bit.

**Author's Note:**

> sad??   
> @henclair on tumblr (brand much)  
> please comment and kudos i stg


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